FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#502 – London 2008 #9 – Million Pound Challenge – Incidents at Twilight

Posted by Editor | Filed under London 2008, Million Pound Challenge '08

It’s just past 6:30 PM. There are 15 players left. I have my back to the action but I can count down the number of remaining players by the applause. When I hear, “all-in and a call,” everything becomes quiet, beyond the scurrying of the two overworked cameramen to the table – though they don’t have to scurry so much now that we are down to two tables.

Then I listen for the applause.

If there’s polite applause, that means someone has been eliminated. If the scene dissolves into shuffling feet, I know the short stack doubled up. I’m a distance from the tables (and I have my back to them) but I imagine the action is divided among the players waiting to get their chips in with a premium hand, and the players stealing as often as they can against the players who are waiting.

Just like a turbo at this point.

The Full Tilt pros, Uncle Tilty, and the other Full Tilt personnel have left. Today was just a day for interviews. The real work is tomorrow and then for the Million Dollar Cash Game on Wednesday and Thursday.

The mood upstairs is more somber. They’ve even lowered the lighting, so it feels like it’s late. I catch the eye of a very attractive woman who smiles in my direction. But I know better. She’s the wife or girlfriend of one of the remaining players, and she’s just being polite, or more likely smiling OVER ME at her fella who happened to look over from his table a moment ago. Some of the busted players can’t bring themselves to leave – not that I blame them. The remainder are friends and relatives of the survivors and the atmosphere among them is somewhat tense.

Earlier today, I saw one of the players walking around wearing an “I busted a Full Tilt pro shirt.” I was going to ask him, just to make conversation, who he busted, but he beat me to the draw, introducing himself as Soly Rocks and thanking me for the shirt.

“Soly, I’m actually flattered you came by,” I told him, and I meant it. “You’re the first person who’s won a shirt from me who I actually saw wearing it.”

At this point, Andy Bloch materialized, seemingly from nowhere, to remind me that HE won a shirt from me.

Before Soly left, he asked me to pose for a picture and I actually posed for two: one with us standing next to each other smiling, the other with me pretending to try to tear the shirt off this neck.

Yeah, pretending.

It’s now 6:55 PM and there are 12 players left. There are 15 minutes left at the 1,500-3,000 level. They promised to send me a list of the final six later on so I’ll pass that along, with some information about the finalists if and when I get it, either tonight or tomorrow.

We restart tomorrow at 10:30 AM local time and I’ll be here. They play down to one Champion, who then faces a gauntlet of heads-up matches against Ivey, de Wolfe, and Ferguson. That Champion, however, gets a coaching session from Bloch and Cunningham. I’ll be covering it all, though the most interesting part for me will be the coaching session. I’ll sneak a voice recorder in if I can. Failing that, I’ll try to sit quietly and pay attention.

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